Welcome to Fash the Nation’s exclusive introduction to the Alt Right! If you were recently disillusioned by Gavin McInnes and his pals, if you are fed up that your MAGA hat provokes verbal (or physical) confrontations in public, or if you just wonder why there are so many smirking green frogs on social media these days, this is the place for you. Red Pill 101 is an ongoing essay series that explains the difference between Alt Right and conservative GOP ideas. If you already know why Republicans constantly lose important battles to the Left, share this series with friends and loved ones who don’t want to be trapped in the CNN thought prison anymore.

A NOTE ON RED PILLS

The Alt Right has taken up the language of The Matrix to explain the uncomfortable but liberating experience of learning the truth about American politics. A Red Pill wakes you up from an illusory nightmare that you did not even know was a nightmare. Suddenly you will become aware of the hidden reasons that make your smart, generous friends sound crazy when they start talking politics. A rough guide that can help identify some easy Red Pills is the me/thee contrast. Red pills are often common truths that everyone lives by in private life, but few apply to public life.

RED PILL #1: EQUALITY

To viscerally feel the Alt Right critique of equality, take a friend on a field trip to an urban center near your home (the larger the better). Visit the nearest Wal-Mart, along with a McDonald’s, a city park, a Goodwill store, and a DMV office. At each location take a good look around you and say to your friend, “I’m so glad that every person here is my equal. Our votes count equally toward electing the government, and our ideas on the environment, taxes, healthcare, and the economy are equally important.” If you feel a bit like a ridiculous hypocrite for saying this, good for you. If your friend laughs at you when you say it, keep that friend.

Equality is the ridiculous underpinning of modern political thought. Its greatest absurdity is that no one actually believes in equality. No one ever proposes selecting the U.S. Olympic team at random: “If your last name begins with J-M, you can represent America in the 100 meter dash!” Everyone wants the best Navy Seals defending them and the best brain surgeon operating on them. If you find anyone who claims to believe in abstract equality, make the argument personal. Talk about their job and ask if everyone at the Wal-Mart or the city park could do what they do. Even a lifelong communist who knows all the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ will indignantly protest that their work is harder and more complicated than it seems.

Humans are inherently unequal in basically every measurable characteristic, and no one really believes that people are equal. So why do we treat equality as the most important feature of our government and bend over backwards to pretend it exists? Well, “all men are created equal” is in the Constitution, right? Actually, it isn’t. The equality rhetoric is in the Declaration of Independence, the polemic that had to convince farmers to rebel against one of the world’s most powerful monarchs. The Founders were much more realistic in the governing document, which is full of inequities. America as originally constituted included African slaves who lacked civil rights and women and poor men who mostly lacked voting rights. Those United States of Inequality functioned rather well for about 200 years, while the egalitarian clown world we currently inhabit is falling apart after 50 years. And the more equality we achieve, the faster and more violently the country collapses.

The traditional ideal of equality in Western Civilization is very different from modern egalitarianism. The ancient Greeks had city councils where every male citizen had an equal vote, but their status grew out of their equal responsibility to feed the nation and equal risk when fighting for the nation. Every man worked a farm of roughly equal size and wore identical armor on the battlefield. In their triune duty of farming, fighting, and voting, only one third concerned the rights of citizens. What would the American tax structure, welfare programs, and national debt look like if the only voters were those citizens who spent themselves laboring for the U.S.A. or spilled their own blood defending her? Equality today is an inversion of the ancient Greek ideal and a perversion of all that makes a nation strong. Egalitarianism means disproportionately spreading rights to the citizens with the least stake in the system while absolving them of all personal responsibility. Risk and responsibility are concentrated as much as possible among White men to prop up the rest of society.

Egalitarianism is the foundation of modern mainstream politics for both parties. Progressives fight for dogmatic egalitarianism where no financial or social cost is too high to pay for achieving equality. Conservatives fight halfheartedly for principled egalitarianism, under which they concede that the Left is correct about the need for equality but try to preserve some scraps of tradition to mask the social damage that comes with it. The Alt Right approaches policy questions with an understanding that there are values higher than equality and that modern egalitarianism is doing active harm to society. A quick example will help distinguish the three positions.

Let’s say the topic is the role of women, gays, and trans people in the military. The Left is aggressively trying to destroy social traditions, so they argue that all combat positions should be open to everyone. You will hear a lot of rhetoric about how excluding gays is not part of “our values” as Americans. Conservatives request studies about how the new military will function and insist that standards not be lowered to accommodate the new troops. Their rhetoric usually includes some version of “everyone deserves a chance to serve their country in uniform.” Notice the inherent surrender in the Conservative position. Conservatives agree in principle that equality in the military is a worthy goal. The Left can securely move forward as fast as they like because Conservatives’ principles prevent them from reversing any innovation. How can Conservatives complain when the Left moves closer to an agreed upon goal, even if they do so in a manner Conservatives do not like? Extrapolate this example to all of politics and you will understand how the Left’s agenda continues to move forward even when the Republicans hold the House, Senate, and White House.

The Alt Right understands that traditions exist because the trial and error of centuries created effective methods to protect society from collapse. We should strive for inequality in our military because inequality is the historic European norm, and inequality works. The Alt Right recognizes higher values, so we refuse to accept the Leftist premise that equality should be our ultimate goal. Changing centuries- long traditions creates social upheaval and unintended consequences that could ripple across society.

If this is your first exposure to Alt Right political thought, you probably have all kinds of anecdotes, counter-arguments and indignant rebuttals flashing through your mind right now. Our way of thinking is completely at odds with everything currently taught in schools and permeating popular culture, but it is within the historical mainstream of Western Civilization. If you have found any of this even mildly convincing, you may still be resisting the Red Pill because of its uncomfortable implications. If equality is on the chopping block today, what happens to feminism, civil rights, and democracy tomorrow? Not to spoil the surprise, but those concepts don’t mean what you think they mean. Each of them will be horrifyingly dissected and reassessed one at a time. This process is not for the squeamish. The Red Pill is no fun while the cords of illusion are being ripped out of their ports and all of reality seems to be falling apart around you, but you have to go through that part to get to the bullet stopping, gravity defying fun stuff. If you oppose the Left, you are here because at some level you know that Conservatives can’t conserve anything. If a philosophy that challenges the assumptions held by liberals and conservatives alike seems too outlandish to be real, keep reading. Remember, just 1400 words ago you thought equality was a fundamental American value. Four paragraphs ago you seriously considered restricting voting rights to only soldiers and farmers.